Hi Ron
(First of all, can you please ask someone who know his/her way around a
computer
to fix your mail program's line breaks. When you quote me, your program breaks
my lines before the end, resulting in one semi-long line and one very short
line, followed by an empty line. And every line you write starts with a capital
letter, it makes reading it very confusing, and time consuming since I have to
fix it in order to read it.).
> Magnus:
> The problem with your SOLAQI is the same problem I've been talking to Ron
> about.
> It assumes our reality consists of thoughts alone. Thoughts of eating,
> thoughts
> of conspiring and then the grand thoughts of intellectual abstraction.
>
> But if you, like Pirsig did in Lila, look at the world around you, write what
> you
> see on small pieces of paper, there are not many of those pieces of paper
> that will
> end up the "thoughts" box, right? A stone is not a thought, the computer I
> type on
> now is not a thought, me thinking about what to write *is* a thought on the
> other hand,
> and of course there's a thought involved when I'm about to write on each
> piece of paper.
> But the vast majority of paper slips will not be thoughts.
>
> Ron:
> This is the central disagreement between us, I was of the same opinion
> Until a few months ago when with the help of David Buchanan and Dan Glover
> To name only a few, brought me around to the notion that Rocks and computers
> Actually ARE thoughts. Thoughts of a differing nature perhaps, but thoughts
> None the less. Basic assumptions on which to build abstract thinking on.
>
> These basic assumptions are formed by social interpretation and taken as
> reality.
And this view differs from "I think, therefore I am" exactly how?
> What I mean by Objective Assumption" is the assumption that thoughts or what
> we
> are thinking about is Totally objective, that your perception of a rock
> is what any human being at any point in history would perceive as a rock.
> The term "a rock" has many meanings and forms just in one cultural definition.
> In our own culture "a rock" is interpreted given many subjective factors of
> the
> One perceiving it. Geography is just one consideration.
> What stored mental images you associate with the term is also associated
> with past experiences.
>
> A Rock to a desert dweller is different from a rock to a pacific
> islander.
Yes, but that difference comes from intellectualizing a physical rock into the
word "rock".
I'll rephrase that: It is *we* who have caused that difference. It wasn't there
until we started giving names to things.
The rock doesn't care about what we or anyone else calls it, it just goes about
being a rock and doing what rocks does. When our solar system was young, there
were nobody there to call anything by name. But the rocks, stones and dust
particles went about their business anyway. Obeying the rules of level 1 and
forming the sun and planets we take for granted today.
> What we perceive as everyday common items, objectively absolute, are
> culturally conditioned overlays.
> Static patterns are perceived symbolically and associated with cultural
> meanings that intellect manipulates abstractly.
Yes, so what? In order to function in a culture, one has to know that culture.
I.e. know what you're supposed to call different things. That doesn't change
the
things represented, only the culture.
> Rueben Able "Man is the Measure":
I don't subscribe to any of that. He tries very hard *not* to make underlying
assumptions, he tries to prove something about reality using nothing but his
own
intellect. But the fact is that he *does* use underlying assumptions. He
assumes
first of all that the "scientific method" has correctly concluded that the
visual perception really *is* discontinuous. Most of his arguments contain
underlying assumptions about how that result was achieved.
So, instead of the hypocrisy of having no underlying assumptions, the MoQ
states
a few rules about how our reality is structured. And this includes the notion
of
a physical reality that is real even without us observing it.
>
>>From DMB:
... lots of text removed...
Yes, so I'm a radical empiricist. What was your point with that?
Magnus
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